No Tusayan ruin offers to the archeologist a better picture of the character of Hopi village life in the seventeenth century than that known as Awatobi (plate CVII).[48] It is peculiarly interesting as connecting the prehistoric culture of Sikyatki and modern Tusayan life, with which we have become well acquainted through recent research. Awatobi was one of the largest Tusayan pueblos in the middle of the sixteenth century, and continued to exist to the close of the seventeenth. It was therefore a historic pueblo. It had a mission, notices of which occur in historical documents of the period. From its preponderance in size, no less than from its position, we may suspect that it held relatively the same leadership among the other Antelope valley ruins that Walpi does today to Sichomovi and Hano. The present condition of the ruins of Awatobi is in no respect peculiar or different from that of the remains of prehistoric structures, except that its mounds occupy a position on a mesa top commanding a wide outlook over a valley. On its east it is hemmed in by extensive sand dunes, which also stretch to the north and west, receding from the village all the way from a few hundred yards to a quarter of a mile. On the south the ruins overlook the plain, and the sands on the west separate it from a canyon in which there are several springs, some cornfields, and one or two modern Hopi houses. There is no water in the valley which stretches away from the mesa on which Awatobi is situated, and the foothills are only sparingly clothed with desert vegetation. The mounds of the ruin have numerous clumps of _sibibi_ (_Rhus trilobata_), and are a favorite resort of Hopi women for the berries of this highly prized shrub. There is a solitary tree midway between the sand dunes west of the village and the western mounds, near which we found it convenient to camp. The only inhabitants of the Awatobi mesa are a Navaho family, who have appropriated, for the shade it affords, a dwarf cedar east of the old mission walls. No land is cultivated, save that in the canyons above mentioned, west of the sand hills; some fair harvests are, however, still gathered from Antelope valley by the Navaho, especially in the section higher up, near Jeditoh spring. The ruin may be approached from the road between Holbrook and Keam's Canyon, turning to the left after climbing the mesa. This road, however, is not usually traveled, since it trends through the difficult sand hills. As Keam's Canyon is the only place in this region at which to provision an expedition, it is usual to approach Awatobi from that side, the road turning to the right shortly after one ascends the steep hill out of the canyon near Keam's trading post.